Urbanization: The Impact of Urbanization in Living Sectors

Topic: “ The movement of people from rural areas to towns must be stopped to avoid future problems”

Urbanization: The Impact of Urbanization in Living Sectors

Nowadays, urbanization is the movement process of people from rural areas to towns. People (reads: villagers) do the process because they want to upgrade/ improve their living standard. Truly, their main reason[1] is towns offer the modern things, like modern transportations, good jobs, etc, for them. That is not the same as a village, which quiet, underdeveloped area, and slum. Thus, they start to make up their mind about the village conditions, and they decide to move to towns. Unfortunately, the urbanization pattern has kinds of impact, either in villages or in towns. Therefore, I will identify the impacts through some aspects, such as social, environmental, and economy.

The first thing is about social impacts. As we know, urbanization causes many impacts, especially social. For example, lack of housing. That happened when villagers does not have place to be stayed. Then, they try to set up houses/ shelters in the suburbs[2], such as flood plains, riverbanks, or steep slopes. Actually, it is very dangerous for them because they build the illegal buildings or constructions and of course, they will not stay long because the government will drag their buildings. Besides, lack of infrastructure services also make them become more buried. It is because, sometimes, slum dwellers cannot get the best services like living without running water, electricity, etc. The effect is they have opportunities to conduct behavioral deviations or social pathology[3](reads: prostitution, crimes- rubbing, holding up, etc- and vandalism[4]). Next, those are exacerbated by increasing people who live in the suburbs or the slums. According to worldbank.org:

“Over the last 50 years, the global population living in slums has risen from 35 million to over 900 million”.

The government gets apprehension because that number can become in the next years. On the other hand, the government has to observe and analyze about the population growth because it can cause social inequality[5] among the society. If it is not put right, it will make clash or violence also.

Furthermore, talks about environmental impacts. According to Badan PemerintahDaerah (BAPEDA)Jawa Barat(West Java Government Agencies), the biggest threatening of urbanization is environmental impacts. It is because everyone needs more energies and resources to survival but it does not be supported by balancing between environment and population regeneration. Thus, the human quality will become low. If the impacts are related to social problems, especially about people who live in slums, they are at particular risk to disease. They should alert for environment hazards, such as air pollutions, industrials pollutions, and poor access to water and sanitation. Then, people have to understand to air quality in towns is getting worse for health too. An air quality research done by UN Habitat[6]gets the result, every year one million people die because of it. Besides, traffic problems become homework for the government, which should be solved immediately. An increasing of car ownership will induce more congestions, pollutions, and accidents[7]. In my view, those are so terrible for towns.

Then, another impact that has to be given attention is economy impact. In economic terms, urbanization gives the impact, which is a structural change in livelihood sector[8]. In fact, many villagers start to leave their job, exactly in agriculture, and then they choose to work as a manual labor in towns. They think that there are many jobs, which they can get there. Unfortunately, they will face the different things because the amounts of job are not commensurate with the higher populations. Thus, they will not get the maximum income (reads: money). On the other hand, the immigrants will be profitable for the companies because those will get the higher advantages, especially lucre. Usually, those will not give the salaries according to their work hours. Finally, it will cause the poverty in towns, and of course, it relates to the other impact (reads: social impact and environmental impact).

The conclusion is urbanization has impacts for towns, especially in living sectors, such as social, environmental, and economy. Therefore, the government must be care, and give a solution to solve the impacts so those will not make matters worse for towns. The government can create some policies to ensure towns have adequate living conditions, such as Urban Planning(reads: creating good sanitations, public health system, transport, or making available jobs); Urban Development Strategy through tailoring people (reads: society) goals to their circumstances of their own regions, and forming the Urban Governance.[9]

The writer goal is asking about the economy impacts/ problems of urbanization.

[1] According to Saladin (1989), the factors that cause the movement are people can find good life and environment in towns, such as better educations, entertainments, and modern transportations; there are many jobs; and towns are the center of activities, like for entertainment, cultures, etc.

[2]Suburbs, usually referring to a residential area, are defined in various ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city.

[6]UN Habitat is one of United Unions agencies charged with looking at human settlements around the world.

[7] Half a million people die and 15 million are injured in urban traffic accidents in developing countries each year, according to the World Health Organization. In my opinion, after read some references, victims of the accidents are mostly paupers.